


with you each and every night

by nctyou



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Depression, M/M, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:15:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27751411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nctyou/pseuds/nctyou
Summary: Steve is struggling to adjust in the 2000s with no one to help him. Bucky is a baker down the street who happens to own the apartment side by side to Steve's old one. If he assists Captain America in breaking into said apartment, what's the worst that could happen, really?
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 3
Kudos: 23





	with you each and every night

Among all other things, baths have stayed the same.

Steve sunk further into the bathtub until the water enveloped his chin and let his legs cramp into the small place left near the drain. Everything had changed in the span of a second, but baths, he found, were almost the same. The water is cleaner, sure, and it looked clear enough to drink. He remembered when he was little, and the water in the sink would turn an ugly green, and his mother would sigh and head to the convenience store to gather gallons of water. If he closed his eyes, he could almost smell his mom’s makeup sitting a few feet away on the counter and can feel the humidity gather in his small bathroom until his forehead gains moisture. When he opened his eyes, he pretended to ignore the water building in his eyes. 

Stark is fine, too much snark and disrespect for Steve’s liking, but he’s fine. He was kind enough to allow him to occupy one of the many rooms in the Tower, and for that, Steve was grateful. But Steve hated it. He hated his room, he hated the TV mounted on the wall, and he hated the constant ticking of the alarm clock on the dresser. The lights were too bright and the room too sterile. It felt like a hospital, and Steve knew what hospitals are like more than anyone. The 40s were god-awful but it was all he knew, and he ached for it all to be back. This change was too much and too fast. 

The first day he was back, he broke down in his bedroom in the middle of the night. Stark walked into a scene that Steve made him swear he would take to his grave. 

Steve was bundled in a blanket on the floor, tucked into a corner touching both walls. The tv was turned around and shoved in the closet, the alarm clock shoved underneath the bed. The blinds were drawn. Stark pretended not to see the tear marks on his cheeks and his cherry red nose, and that was enough to earn Steve’s respect for him. 

Lighting up a cigarette, Steve climbed out of the bath when the water began to nip cooly at his sides. Smoking helped sometimes, he found. Apparently, as every single SHIELD employee and Stark himself said, smoking was bad for him now, but they seemed to forget he was frozen in the ground for seventy years. A cigarette wouldn’t kill him, but if it did, good riddance to him. What a way to go. 

\--

SHIELD seemed to think that the serum changed his head too. In their eyes, Steve had no right to be upset. He was found in the ice alive, and now he got to continue being the government’s poster boy for justice—lucky him! They stuck him in a room for a few hours trying to ease him into the 2000s and gave up on it as soon as Steve figured it out. They stuck him immediately in a hospital afterward, checking his brain and body, and denied him every request. They didn’t tell him how long it had been, if he could see his mother or Peggy or Stark, if the war was over, if he could hold his jacket. 

After the hospital visit, they assumed he would get over himself and figure out everything on his own. A few briefing meetings and Stark junior were the only real attempt made to catch him up to speed. SHIELD didn’t even have the decency to tell him his apartment was a museum, and they auctioned off every last personal item he owned. He was alone. 

Stark pretended he didn’t give a shit about him, but the sketchbook placed at his door and the reprogramming of his TV to only play shows from his time frame would say otherwise. He tried to blame Pepper when he asked anyway.

Above everything else, Steve was a World War II veteran with shellshock living in the 2000s. Apparently, when you’re a super-soldier, you’re not allowed to experience the trauma of war. All Steve ever got was a meeting with a doctor after he first took a life telling him about shell shock. Sixty years later, Steve was told they don’t use the term “shellshock” anymore. Lovely.

So he pretended.

Steve pretended to be the world’s golden boy coming back when they thought all hope was lost, when the world needed him again. He pretended to adjust to the world and pretended to be okay. He even pretended he still thought he made a difference in this new world. When shit hits the fan, Steve Rogers was just the government’s tool with no autonomy, and he had to learn to accept that. 

\--

After another meeting with SHIELD, Steve looked like a fucking creep standing all six foot two in the middle of a cramped hallway on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The hallway has got to be five feet wide at most, and Steve felt like a man on stilts standing in the narrow and short doorway of his old apartment. The sign on the door gets straight to the point with its bold letters declaring: STEVE ROGERS AKA CAPTAIN AMERICA’S CHILDHOOD HOME! and listing the hours they were open for tours. He had no idea how they fit more than six people into the building, let alone his apartment. 

He needed to see something normal. He just had ten corporate drones inform him on recent events and what he should be doing to help for two hours straight, so forgive him if he was a little out of it. 

He didn't know if it would be weird to knock, so he just loomed in front of the closed door and stared. The building hadn’t been remodeled, most likely because of its attachment to Steve, and the rooms still smelled like smoke and mildew picking away at his skin. It was uncomfortable, but it was the 30s all right. 

“Hey man, if you’re lookin’ for the tour, it’s closed today,” a deep voice said from behind him, sounding rushed. “It’s the man’s birthday, I think. They shut it down out of respect every year.”

 _Respect, my ass,_ Steve thought. SHIELD allowed the goddamn museum to stay open after they flat out refused to let Steve take home his childhood quilt when he asked over the phone. They didn’t give a shit about respect. 

Steve turned around to acknowledge the man and give his thanks, but the man froze. 

The man was standing stiff as a board two doors down, halfway out of the door frame. He had a bright pink apron draped over his arms and a cute furrow to his brow. He was shorter than Steve, that’s for sure, but he was big in the way Steve is, all muscles but too thin. His hair was messy like he had been repeatedly running his hands through it in frustration, and there was a pair of glasses sitting askew on his nose. He was handsome in a way that made Steve still. He wanted to run his hands through that silky hair himself.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry, man—sir? Captain?” he rushed out frantically, fiddling with his apron, and avoiding eye contact. Steve knew his disguise of a ballcap and sunglasses weren't that good—but shit. “Uh, do you need help with anything? I could probably call one of the employees to get you in, I’m tight with one of ‘em.”

Steve reached his hand out to shake the man’s hand. It was warm and sweaty, probably out of nerves. “Steve’s fine. And no thank you, I’m not exactly on speaking terms with the people who run this thing.” He nodded his head towards the door and slightly kicked it in acknowledgment with a foot. 

“Is there anything I can do to help?” The kid’s wide eyes do not do anything to help Steve’s staring. 

Steve glanced back at the locked door, then at the man and his apron, saying, “If I ask for a bobby pin that wouldn’t be suspicious, would it?”

**Author's Note:**

> steve rogers sadness bc i still don't like the way he was portrayed to jump back from the ice so easily. steve, to me, is kinda sensitive idk
> 
> title from get used to it by ricky montgomery. i think it fits.
> 
> 3 chapters rn but it might change we'll see. also shellshock is just ptsd its what it was called in ww2.
> 
> lmk if there's any spelling mistakes or anything


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